Bedside Tables with Drawers in White, Black and Oak

The bedside table is the most used surface in the house for its size, and the one where a bad decision is felt every single night. It is also the only piece of furniture in a bedroom bought in twos. Get the height and the gap right and everything else — colour, timber, drawers — is a matter of taste. Get them wrong and no finish rescues it.

This collection covers bedside tables in every finish and size we hold, from narrow ones for a tight gap to matching pairs with three drawers.

What height a bedside table should be

Level with the top of your mattress, or up to two inches (5cm) above it. That is the whole rule, and it matters because everything you reach for at night is reached for without looking — a glass of water, a phone, a light switch. When the top sits below the mattress you are reaching down into a space you cannot see, and that is how glasses get knocked over.

Measure your own bed rather than working from a standard. Mattress heights have drifted upwards over the last twenty years, and a deep divan base with a pocket-sprung mattress and a topper can sit six or seven inches (15-18cm) higher than a low platform frame. Two beds in the same room, in the same house, can want completely different bedside tables.

This is also the one thing photographs cannot settle, along with how a drawer actually runs when you pull it. Our Enniskillen showroom has bedside tables standing against beds at different heights, and ten seconds beside one tells you more than any measurement.

White, black and grey bedside tables

Colour is what most people search for first here, and white by a wide margin. There is a practical reason: the bedroom is usually the smallest room in the house holding the largest object, and a pale bedside table stops the corner beside the bed closing in.

White and cream bedside tables

White keeps a small bedroom open and works with almost any bed frame, painted or upholstered. It is the safest choice in a rented room or anywhere the rest of the furniture might change. Cream and off-white are softer against warm timber floors, where a bright white can look stark.

Black and grey bedside tables

Black gives a pale bedroom an anchor and hides marks better than anything else here, which matters on a piece that gets handled in the dark every night. Grey sits between the two and is the easiest to place, particularly against grey or blue bedlinen where white can read as a gap rather than a choice.

Oak, wooden and rattan bedside tables

Timber is the other half of the decision, and in a bedroom it does something colour cannot: it warms a room that is usually cool, quiet and pale.

Oak bedside tables

Oak is the most common timber here and the most forgiving. The open grain hides the small marks a bedside table collects — rings from a glass, the scuff where a charger drags across the top — far better than a smooth close-grained wood. It also comes in a wide enough spread of finishes to sit with almost any bed.

Walnut and dark wood bedside tables

Dark timber is the choice when the bed itself is pale or upholstered and the room needs something to hold it down. It shows dust more than oak does and hides everything else better, which is a fair trade on a piece this size.

Rattan and woven bedside tables

Rattan brings texture into a room that often has very little, and it reads as much lighter than a solid box of the same size because the eye passes through the weave. The trade-off is dust caught in the texture and a top that is not solid across its whole width, so a heavy lamp wants a firm centre.

Narrow and slim bedside tables

More people search for a narrow bedside table than for any other kind, and the reason is always the same: the gap between the bed and the wall, the radiator or the door. Measure the gap before anything else, and take two inches (5cm) off it so the table is not wedged in.

Small bedside tables for tight spaces

When the gap is very tight, go up rather than out. A taller, narrower table gives you the same usable top on a much smaller footprint, and at bedside height taller is often more comfortable to reach anyway. A table on legs also reads as smaller than a solid box of identical dimensions, because you can see the floor underneath it.

Tall bedside tables

Tall bedside tables solve two problems at once. They suit high divan beds, where a standard table sits well below the mattress, and they suit narrow gaps, because the height buys back the storage the width gave away. Check the height against your mattress before the width — it is the measurement that decides whether the table works at all.

Bedside tables with drawers

What you keep beside the bed decides this. A drawer takes the things nobody wants on display — medication, chargers, glasses, whatever collects in the drift of small objects beside a bed — and leaves the top clear for a lamp and a book.

Bedside tables with three drawers

Three shallow drawers sort small things where one deep drawer just creates a pile. They also suit a bedroom without a chest of drawers, since a three drawer bedside table takes on part of that job in the space it was already occupying.

Bedside tables with a shelf

An open shelf is the opposite argument: nothing to open, everything reachable, and a book put down without a second thought. It suits anyone who reads in bed and does not mind what is on show. The common compromise — a drawer above and a shelf below — is popular because most people want one of each.

Bedside tables in pairs and sets of two

A bed with two sides wants two bedside tables, and the pair should match each other even when nothing else in the room does. Two different tables flanking a bed read as an accident rather than a decision, and it is the one place in the house where matching genuinely helps.

When the two sides of the bed are different

Where one side has a wall and the other a walkway, a matching pair in the narrower of the two sizes beats one of each. The symmetry is worth more than the few extra inches of surface, and the difference is invisible once the bed is made.

Wall mounted and floating bedside tables

A floating bedside table fixes to the wall with nothing touching the floor, and it does two things a standing table cannot. It makes a small bedroom read as larger, because the floor runs unbroken underneath it. And it can be hung at exactly the right height for your mattress rather than the height it was built to.

What a wall mounted bedside table needs to fix to

A solid wall is straightforward. A stud partition needs the fixings to land on the studs, which may not fall where you want the table, so it is worth finding the studs before choosing this over a standing table. Plasterboard alone will not hold a loaded bedside table.

Bedside cabinets and bedside lockers

All three names describe the same piece of furniture, and which one you hear depends largely on where you are. Bedside cabinet is the most common alternative across the trade, and bedside locker is what the same thing is called through much of Ireland. None of them is more correct than the others, and it is worth searching all three when comparing.

How a bedside cabinet differs in practice

Where there is any real distinction, a cabinet or locker tends to mean more enclosed storage — a cupboard door rather than open drawers, or a deeper carcass with three or four drawers rather than one. In short, it holds more and shows less. A bedside table is more likely to have a single drawer, an open shelf, or nothing but legs and a top.

Bedside table FAQs

What height should a bedside table be?

Level with the top of your mattress or up to two inches (5cm) above it. Measure your own bed rather than using a standard figure, because mattress heights vary widely — a deep divan with a topper sits several inches higher than a low frame. Below mattress height is the one arrangement to avoid.

How wide should a bedside table be?

Measure the gap between the bed and whatever is next to it, then take about two inches (5cm) off. That leaves room to make the bed and to get past without catching a hip. If the gap is very tight, a taller and narrower table gives you the same top on a smaller footprint.

Do bedside tables have to match?

The pair either side of the bed should match each other, yes. It is the one place in a house where matching furniture genuinely helps rather than looking like a suite. Matching them to the wardrobe or the dressing table is optional.

Drawers or an open shelf beside the bed?

Drawers if you want the clutter out of sight, a shelf if you want things reachable without opening anything. Three shallow drawers sort small items better than one deep one. Most people end up wanting both, which is why a drawer above a shelf is the most common arrangement.

What is the difference between a bedside table, a bedside cabinet and a bedside locker?

Very little — the three terms are used interchangeably, with locker the usual word across much of Ireland. Where there is a distinction, a cabinet or locker has more enclosed storage behind a door or a deeper run of drawers, while a table is more likely to have a single drawer or an open shelf.

Are wall mounted bedside tables a good idea?

In a small bedroom, yes — the floor runs unbroken underneath and the room reads larger, and you can hang it at exactly the right height for your mattress. The condition is a wall that takes the fixing. On a stud partition the fixings need to land on the studs, which may not be where you want the table.